


Dar

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Jodhaa Akbar canon fics [15]
Category: Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)
Genre: ABCDE Redux Meme, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Four things that Rani Padmavati feared.Title means “fright”.





	Dar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/gifts).



1\. That Jodhaa will die. When she hands her daughter the vial of poison, she is being kind in the only way she knows. Padmavati has been taught the value of her honor all her life, how to live without it is no life at all, and she has passed that lesson on to her daughter, like any Rajput woman would. Did not her own namesake achieve greatness through her sacrifice? Yet she feels as though she ought to have given her better advice, and when she sends Jodhaa to the Red Fort, she is terrified that her daughter will indeed uncork that vial, and that she will have been woefully inadequate as a mother.

(Jodhaa proves her fears so, so wrong.)

2\. Sujamal. She ought not to fear him so; it is no fault of his that his late father was Bharmal’s older brother, and that his claim supersedes Bhagwant Das. He is an upright, kind young man, one she is as proud of as if he were her own son, and he has always treated Jodhaa and Bhagwant Das like his own blood siblings. Yet she looks at him, looks at the fire burning behind that quiet, noble exterior, and trembles at the thought of the future.

(Sujamal proves her fears so, so right.)

3\. Birds. As a young girl, she was attacked once by an angry sparrow that she had bothered. The scratches have long healed and she has gained some wisdom since then, but the fear of those feathery menaces has always lingered. Jodhaa loves to feed the pigeons and sparrows, though, and Padmavati swallows her distaste for her daughter’s sake.

(When Jodhaa writes from Agra that she has freed Shah and Shurukh, Padmavati is glad for an entirely different reason than the birds’ freedom.)

4\. The Mughals. Her whole life the Mughal Empire had always been a distant presence, like a storm cloud on the horizon, growing in strength and darkness until it loomed over Amer, blocking out all sunlight. Padmavati shakes at the thought of Jodhaa going there in exchange for peace, and awaits every letter anxiously to know that she has not sent her daughter into the hands of barbarians.

(When the Emperor comes to visit Amer for the first time, she is quite happy to put the tilak on his forehead.)


End file.
